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Trading Infrastructure
Polling vs Streaming Data
Two ways to get market data: ask for it repeatedly, or have it pushed to you the instant it changes. For fast execution, the difference is everything.
NoVo Options Trading · 2026
A trading system needs current market data, and there are two ways to get it. Polling means asking the data source "what's the price now?" on a repeating timer. Streaming means opening a persistent connection (a websocket) and having the source push updates the instant they change. The choice shapes how fresh your view of the market is.
The freshness gap
Polling every second means your data can be up to a second stale — and on a fast-moving option, a second-old quote is a wrong quote. Poll faster and you hammer rate limits and waste calls when nothing changed. Streaming eliminates the gap: you know the moment the price moves, with no timer lag and no wasted requests.
Why streaming wins for execution
Combined with an event loop, a streaming feed lets a system react the instant the market moves rather than on its next scheduled check. That's the difference between acting on a live tape and acting on a slightly-old snapshot — exactly where latency and slippage creep in for short-term trades.
Polling asks "what's the price?" and hopes it's still true. Streaming already knows it changed.
The resilience nuance
Streaming has a catch: connections drop. A robust system treats a stale or dead stream as a red flag — it knows the difference between "the price hasn't moved" and "I've stopped hearing about it," and refuses to trade on data it can't trust. Prioritizing a fresh streaming feed, with polling as a backstop and a staleness guard, is the kind of data hygiene a serious execution tool like NoVo is built around.
More on this: What Data Does NoVo See? Transparency on Inputs and Levels
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NoVo is a software tool for market analysis and for executing trades you initiate, not financial advice. This article is general education, not investment advice. Options trading involves substantial risk of loss, up to and including your entire capital. NoVo makes no guarantee of profit, win rate, or performance, and past results do not predict future outcomes. You are responsible for your own broker account, configuration, and trading decisions.